10 Insane Alternate Versions Of The Thing You Won't Believe Exist
2. The Ruins Of Ben Grimm And Peter Parker
Warren Ellis's Ruins is an intensely depressing and entertainingly mean-spirited parody of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross's masterpiece, Marvels. Following the same main character, photographer Phil Sheldon, Ruins takes place in a universe that follows one rule: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
The series is two prestige-format issues of calamity after calamity. Scott "Cyclops" Summers gets his eyes gouged out after accidentally incinerating his family. Johnny "Ghost Rider" Blaze dies from setting his head on fire during a stunt. Thor isn't even a God, he's just a man named Donald Blake who attempted to start a Norse cult after tripping on hallucinogenic mushrooms.
This reality's point of divergence from the mainstream Marvel Universe actually stems from Ben Grimm. In this version of events, when Reed Richards asked him to pilot his spaceship, he refused. Richards went with his second choice of pilot, a man named Victor von Doom, and things didn't go according to plan: the ship was hit by cosmic rays and crash landed, killing everyone on board. Ben now lives his days wallowing in regret, knowing that if he was the pilot, things might have gone just a little bit differently.
The closest thing to the Thing's classic look in Ruins is a deadly mutant virus that Peter Parker picks up after being bitten by an irradiated spider, turning him into a disgusting yet familiar-looking orange monster. The comic fittingly ends with Phil dying of the same virus, completely alone in the middle of the street. Brutal.